Response to the Sullivan post below, by Roger L. Simon:
JFK and GWB
As a (relative) geezer for the blogosphere, I have strong personal memories of JFK. I recall, as a Dartmouth College undergrad, sitting in the lobby of the Hanover Inn, watching Kennedy deliver the key speech of the Cuban Missile Crisis on television. (Students didn’t have their own sets in those days, strange as that may now seem.) It was a stirring experience, though highly unnerving since the prospect of nuclear Armageddon was in the offing. I cannot say that Bush’s speech to the National Endowment of Democracy was equally dramatic, but it was certainly a fine one, reminiscent in many ways of JFK (who was assassinated, as it happens, on my 20th birthday).
Surprising as it may be (and to me it is virtually astonishing), I have to agree with Andrew Sullivan that the JFK-GWB comparison is becoming relevant. And three events of the last few days have made me more convinced that I was correct in my public declaration that, as of now, this Democrat is backing Bush in 2004. They are:
1. That speech before the NED emphasizing the paramount importance to the world of democracy in the Middle East.
2. The shooting down of our helicopters in Iraq over the last few days with the tragic loss of our troops.
3. Our military’s quick and strong response in Tikrit yesterday (with more hopefully forthcoming).
These three events are reminders, assuming we needed them, that we are very much at war. You don’t change your Commander in Chief in the midst of a war, unless you have an exceptionally good reason. Otherwise you will tell your adversaries that they are winning and they should continue to prosecute their actions. (This assumes, of course, that you think the war worth winning. If not, vote for Kucinich. He’s the only candidate advocating withdrawal.).
We are facing opponents who depend entirely on the perception of our weakness for victory. Because we are a democracy we cannot and should not ask our press to refrain from criticism, nor should we ask the political candidates to tone down their rhetoric. We can only show our steadfastness at the ballot box or with our own public published or verbal responses to the anti-war faction. And since this is an age when practically everyone can have his or her own printing press, there is plenty of opportunity to make yourself heard. I am.
UPDATE: For those of you who skip the comments, do not miss the link below suggested by "heather" to a new Iraqi blog called THE MESSOPOTAMIAN. It is absolutely brilliant.
Saturday, November 08, 2003
A good comparison from Andrew Sullivan:
JFK AND GWB:
During the primary season (the last go-round) I wrote a speculative (and somewhat hostile) piece comparing then-candidate George W. Bush with former president John F Kennedy. I meant it as a useful mind-exercise, but as time has gone on, I think the analogy strengthens. The backgrounds are similar: unruly scions of political families, young men who got their start in politics through pure nepotism. Their frat-boy garrulousness, their effortless patriotism, their family loyalties - it all works until you get to the moment when GWB gave up the wild life at 40 and JFK kept his going. But on policy, they're also much more similar than either the right or the left is comfortable conceding. They both came into office in a disupted election after a two-term president who presided over a major boom. President Kennedy fought an election on hawkish foreign policy; the current President Bush walked backward into hawkishness through the drastic orientation of 9/11. Both cut taxes and unleashed periods of economic growth. And both argued uncompromisingly for democracy across the world. Some boomers may also see in Iraq the same pattern as president Kennedy's early foray into Vietnam. I'd disagree strongly, but history will surely judge in due course. Perhaps more tellingly, both used powerful and moving rhetoric to assert the exceptionalism of the United States at a time when it was being attacked. President Bush's speech Thursday at the National Endowment for Democracy was perhaps the highpoint of this president's transformation into an old-style Democrat in foreign policy. Too bad the Democrats can neither see this nor profit from it.
JFK AND GWB:
During the primary season (the last go-round) I wrote a speculative (and somewhat hostile) piece comparing then-candidate George W. Bush with former president John F Kennedy. I meant it as a useful mind-exercise, but as time has gone on, I think the analogy strengthens. The backgrounds are similar: unruly scions of political families, young men who got their start in politics through pure nepotism. Their frat-boy garrulousness, their effortless patriotism, their family loyalties - it all works until you get to the moment when GWB gave up the wild life at 40 and JFK kept his going. But on policy, they're also much more similar than either the right or the left is comfortable conceding. They both came into office in a disupted election after a two-term president who presided over a major boom. President Kennedy fought an election on hawkish foreign policy; the current President Bush walked backward into hawkishness through the drastic orientation of 9/11. Both cut taxes and unleashed periods of economic growth. And both argued uncompromisingly for democracy across the world. Some boomers may also see in Iraq the same pattern as president Kennedy's early foray into Vietnam. I'd disagree strongly, but history will surely judge in due course. Perhaps more tellingly, both used powerful and moving rhetoric to assert the exceptionalism of the United States at a time when it was being attacked. President Bush's speech Thursday at the National Endowment for Democracy was perhaps the highpoint of this president's transformation into an old-style Democrat in foreign policy. Too bad the Democrats can neither see this nor profit from it.
Thursday, November 06, 2003
As posted on Andrew Sullivan's blog today:
HITCH ON IRAQ:
As usual, a must-read. He's sharpest in pointing out how leaving Saddam in place was rapidly becoming a non-option, despite the Scowcroftian bromides (and weird last-minute attempts at deals, newly reported in the New York Times). Money quote:
This already lousy status quo was volatile and unstable. Saddam Hussein's speeches and policies were becoming ever more demented and extreme and ever more Islamist in tone. The flag of Iraq was amended to include a verse from the Quran, and gigantic mosques began to be built in Saddam's own name. Even if, as seems remotely possible, he was largely bluffing about weapons of mass destruction, this conclusion would destroy the view maintained by many liberals that, for all his crimes, Saddam understood the basic logic of deterrence and self-preservation. (That he was "in his box," as the saying went.) Not only was he able to defy the United Nations, but with French and Russian collusion, he was also increasingly able to circumvent sanctions. The "box" was falling apart, and its supposed captive was becoming more toxic. As he became older and madder, there emerged the real prospect of a succession passing to either Odai or Qusai Hussein, or to both of them. Who could view that prospect with equanimity?
Er, most of the Democratic candidates.
HITCH ON IRAQ:
As usual, a must-read. He's sharpest in pointing out how leaving Saddam in place was rapidly becoming a non-option, despite the Scowcroftian bromides (and weird last-minute attempts at deals, newly reported in the New York Times). Money quote:
This already lousy status quo was volatile and unstable. Saddam Hussein's speeches and policies were becoming ever more demented and extreme and ever more Islamist in tone. The flag of Iraq was amended to include a verse from the Quran, and gigantic mosques began to be built in Saddam's own name. Even if, as seems remotely possible, he was largely bluffing about weapons of mass destruction, this conclusion would destroy the view maintained by many liberals that, for all his crimes, Saddam understood the basic logic of deterrence and self-preservation. (That he was "in his box," as the saying went.) Not only was he able to defy the United Nations, but with French and Russian collusion, he was also increasingly able to circumvent sanctions. The "box" was falling apart, and its supposed captive was becoming more toxic. As he became older and madder, there emerged the real prospect of a succession passing to either Odai or Qusai Hussein, or to both of them. Who could view that prospect with equanimity?
Er, most of the Democratic candidates.
Righteous voice silenced
Thursday, November 6, 2003
BY BARBARA WALTERS AND MATTHEW JAKUBOWSKI
KALAMAZOO GAZETTE
Bobby Hatfield of the Righteous Brothers was found dead in his bed at the Radisson Plaza Hotel in downtown Kalamazoo on Wednesday evening less than an hour before the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame duo was to perform for an audience of nearly 2,400 at Miller Auditorium.
"It just looked like he went to bed and didn't wake up. There was no sign of struggle," said Joe Hakim, vice president of Greenleaf Ventures, which owns the Radisson.
Hatfield's body was taken from the hotel about 10 p.m. Wednesday to Lansing, where an autopsy was to be performed, Hakim said. A local medical examiner said it appeared Hatfield died of natural causes.
Preliminary autopsy results were expected to be available late today or early Friday, according to Dr. Richard Tooker, Kalamazoo County medical examiner, although final toxicology test results may take much longer, police said.
Hakim said Hatfield had been sleeping most of the day in his room. The duo, whose other member is Bill Medley, and its band were to meet in the lobby but Hatfield did not meet the group. Starting at about 6 p.m., wake-up calls were made to his room. When Hatfield did not answer, hotel personnel were called.
They found Hatfield, 63, lying in his bed with his head on his pillow and the blankets tucked around him, Hakim said.
Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety Assistant Chief Mike McCaw said hotel security and Hatfield's manager entered Hatfield's hotel room by cutting the door chain, and KDPS was called immediately afterward.
"At this point, we don't know about previous health conditions," McCaw said. "We were told by his manager that he hadn't been feeling well for the last day or so. Nothing specific, other than he hadn't been feeling well."
McCaw said he did not believe Medley was present when hotel security staff entered Hatfield's room.
Jamie Browning, lead guitarist for the Righteous Brothers' band, said late this morning that he's "still shocked and saddened. The world is missing a great guy now," he said.
Browning said of Medley: "He's doing OK now, but he's lost his soul mate."
Earlier, Righteous Brothers manager David Cohen told CNN, "It's a shock, a real shock." He added that Medley was " broken up. He's not even coherent."
Medley, who was also staying at the Radisson, was still there this morning, but the Gazette was unable to reach him for comment.
Browning said the band members were all planning to leave today to fly back to their homes in California.
Bill Biddle, Miller Auditorium executive director, told the audience at Miller at 7:05 p.m. Wednesday that the 7:30 p.m. show was being canceled for a "personal emergency of an unspecified nature."
Biddle said he refrained from telling the audience about Hatfield's death because Hatfield's widow, Linda Hatfield, who was in California, had not been told yet.
Jean Vestrand of Texas Township got to Miller Auditorium before 6:30 p.m. and was sitting in the 14th row with her husband. When Biddle made the announcement, Vestrand said, "You could tell by the way he was talking that he was disturbed. I thought in my mind that he was trying to say to people, 'How do you tell an entire audience that someone like this has died?' From how he put it -- he said, 'You will all know shortly, within time' -- I knew he meant that if we just watch the news later on that we'd know what happened."
For Vestrand, 56, the show held special significance because it was the first time she and her husband, Ronald, had been to a concert together in more than 30 years.
The doors to Miller were closed at around 7 p.m., just as friends Carol Taylor of Portage and Jacqueline Jacobson of Texas Township arrived.
"All these really big guys were at the door," Taylor said. "They just said that the show had been canceled because of an emergency. ... We were devastated. We thought, 'What on earth could have happened?' "
Jacobson said she has been a fan of the Righteous Brothers since the 1960s. When she and others started guessing about what had happened, "I never thought it would be one of them," she said. "We thought that maybe they were sick. I thought maybe it was somebody else close to them."
Miller Auditorium had to cancel a show in October because of a death in the family of violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman.
Neither Taylor nor Jacobson heard the news of Hatfield's death until this morning.
"My favorite song was 'Unchained Melody,' " Taylor said.
"I've enjoyed them since I was a teenager," Jacobson said. "Oh, my gosh! This is so sad. It just makes me feel sick."
Randy Rowley, host of the "Big Oldies Breakfast" show on radio station WQXC -- "Cool 101" -- in Otsego, said the station was playing a Righteous Brothers song at the beginning of every hour this morning in honor of Hatfield's memory.
He added that listener response was high.
"A lot of people are calling," he said. "One man called and was just crying on the phone this morning."
He called the Righteous Brothers "a staple in that area" of folk-pop music. He numbered the group among the performers who "extend across the ages," attracting both young and older fans.
Rowley said WQXC had given away many free tickets to Wednesday night's scheduled concert. "People really wanted to see them," he said.
Ted Kistler, who founded and runs Kalamazoo's New Vic Theatre and toured as a folk singer in the 1960s with the late Jim Brignall, said he had never met Hatfield "but Jim Brignall and I were big fans, of course. We sure listened to them a lot."
He called Hatfield's death "a big loss. It's a shame," he said.
Kistler said fans will mourn Hatfield's death because the Righteous Brothers' music "becomes a part of your life, and suddenly a part of your life is gone. Fortunately, we have the records."
Biddle said he had worked with the Righteous Brothers at least three times while on the staff at the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts, north of Detroit.
"It's always disappointing to see a music legend die," Biddle said. "They were both very down-to-earth. They were always nice to the crew and to the band."
The show at Miller was to kick off a series of performances in Michigan and Ohio over the next four days. Medley and Hatfield were scheduled to perform tonight at the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mount Pleasant.
Medley and Hatfield formed as a duo in 1962 and took the name the Righteous Brothers in 1963. A year later they recorded their biggest hit, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," the most-played song in American radio history, according to cable TV channel VH1.
In 1965, Hatfield, the tenor of the duo, recorded the classic "Unchained Melody" in a single studio take, according to the Righteous Brothers' Web site. The song was repopularized by the 1990 movie "Ghost" and a re-recorded version earned the duo a Grammy nomination.
They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in March. In an Oct. 21 interview with the Kalamazoo Gazette, Medley said the induction came "in the nick of time" because "well, we're getting old."
Nearly 2,400 tickets were sold for the Wednesday show, Biddle said. Auditorium staff will begin processing ticket refunds today.
Thursday, November 6, 2003
BY BARBARA WALTERS AND MATTHEW JAKUBOWSKI
KALAMAZOO GAZETTE
Bobby Hatfield of the Righteous Brothers was found dead in his bed at the Radisson Plaza Hotel in downtown Kalamazoo on Wednesday evening less than an hour before the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame duo was to perform for an audience of nearly 2,400 at Miller Auditorium.
"It just looked like he went to bed and didn't wake up. There was no sign of struggle," said Joe Hakim, vice president of Greenleaf Ventures, which owns the Radisson.
Hatfield's body was taken from the hotel about 10 p.m. Wednesday to Lansing, where an autopsy was to be performed, Hakim said. A local medical examiner said it appeared Hatfield died of natural causes.
Preliminary autopsy results were expected to be available late today or early Friday, according to Dr. Richard Tooker, Kalamazoo County medical examiner, although final toxicology test results may take much longer, police said.
Hakim said Hatfield had been sleeping most of the day in his room. The duo, whose other member is Bill Medley, and its band were to meet in the lobby but Hatfield did not meet the group. Starting at about 6 p.m., wake-up calls were made to his room. When Hatfield did not answer, hotel personnel were called.
They found Hatfield, 63, lying in his bed with his head on his pillow and the blankets tucked around him, Hakim said.
Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety Assistant Chief Mike McCaw said hotel security and Hatfield's manager entered Hatfield's hotel room by cutting the door chain, and KDPS was called immediately afterward.
"At this point, we don't know about previous health conditions," McCaw said. "We were told by his manager that he hadn't been feeling well for the last day or so. Nothing specific, other than he hadn't been feeling well."
McCaw said he did not believe Medley was present when hotel security staff entered Hatfield's room.
Jamie Browning, lead guitarist for the Righteous Brothers' band, said late this morning that he's "still shocked and saddened. The world is missing a great guy now," he said.
Browning said of Medley: "He's doing OK now, but he's lost his soul mate."
Earlier, Righteous Brothers manager David Cohen told CNN, "It's a shock, a real shock." He added that Medley was " broken up. He's not even coherent."
Medley, who was also staying at the Radisson, was still there this morning, but the Gazette was unable to reach him for comment.
Browning said the band members were all planning to leave today to fly back to their homes in California.
Bill Biddle, Miller Auditorium executive director, told the audience at Miller at 7:05 p.m. Wednesday that the 7:30 p.m. show was being canceled for a "personal emergency of an unspecified nature."
Biddle said he refrained from telling the audience about Hatfield's death because Hatfield's widow, Linda Hatfield, who was in California, had not been told yet.
Jean Vestrand of Texas Township got to Miller Auditorium before 6:30 p.m. and was sitting in the 14th row with her husband. When Biddle made the announcement, Vestrand said, "You could tell by the way he was talking that he was disturbed. I thought in my mind that he was trying to say to people, 'How do you tell an entire audience that someone like this has died?' From how he put it -- he said, 'You will all know shortly, within time' -- I knew he meant that if we just watch the news later on that we'd know what happened."
For Vestrand, 56, the show held special significance because it was the first time she and her husband, Ronald, had been to a concert together in more than 30 years.
The doors to Miller were closed at around 7 p.m., just as friends Carol Taylor of Portage and Jacqueline Jacobson of Texas Township arrived.
"All these really big guys were at the door," Taylor said. "They just said that the show had been canceled because of an emergency. ... We were devastated. We thought, 'What on earth could have happened?' "
Jacobson said she has been a fan of the Righteous Brothers since the 1960s. When she and others started guessing about what had happened, "I never thought it would be one of them," she said. "We thought that maybe they were sick. I thought maybe it was somebody else close to them."
Miller Auditorium had to cancel a show in October because of a death in the family of violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman.
Neither Taylor nor Jacobson heard the news of Hatfield's death until this morning.
"My favorite song was 'Unchained Melody,' " Taylor said.
"I've enjoyed them since I was a teenager," Jacobson said. "Oh, my gosh! This is so sad. It just makes me feel sick."
Randy Rowley, host of the "Big Oldies Breakfast" show on radio station WQXC -- "Cool 101" -- in Otsego, said the station was playing a Righteous Brothers song at the beginning of every hour this morning in honor of Hatfield's memory.
He added that listener response was high.
"A lot of people are calling," he said. "One man called and was just crying on the phone this morning."
He called the Righteous Brothers "a staple in that area" of folk-pop music. He numbered the group among the performers who "extend across the ages," attracting both young and older fans.
Rowley said WQXC had given away many free tickets to Wednesday night's scheduled concert. "People really wanted to see them," he said.
Ted Kistler, who founded and runs Kalamazoo's New Vic Theatre and toured as a folk singer in the 1960s with the late Jim Brignall, said he had never met Hatfield "but Jim Brignall and I were big fans, of course. We sure listened to them a lot."
He called Hatfield's death "a big loss. It's a shame," he said.
Kistler said fans will mourn Hatfield's death because the Righteous Brothers' music "becomes a part of your life, and suddenly a part of your life is gone. Fortunately, we have the records."
Biddle said he had worked with the Righteous Brothers at least three times while on the staff at the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts, north of Detroit.
"It's always disappointing to see a music legend die," Biddle said. "They were both very down-to-earth. They were always nice to the crew and to the band."
The show at Miller was to kick off a series of performances in Michigan and Ohio over the next four days. Medley and Hatfield were scheduled to perform tonight at the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mount Pleasant.
Medley and Hatfield formed as a duo in 1962 and took the name the Righteous Brothers in 1963. A year later they recorded their biggest hit, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," the most-played song in American radio history, according to cable TV channel VH1.
In 1965, Hatfield, the tenor of the duo, recorded the classic "Unchained Melody" in a single studio take, according to the Righteous Brothers' Web site. The song was repopularized by the 1990 movie "Ghost" and a re-recorded version earned the duo a Grammy nomination.
They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in March. In an Oct. 21 interview with the Kalamazoo Gazette, Medley said the induction came "in the nick of time" because "well, we're getting old."
Nearly 2,400 tickets were sold for the Wednesday show, Biddle said. Auditorium staff will begin processing ticket refunds today.
From the Boston Globe:
Springsteen 101: Harvard prof's new book examines Boss as people's `Poet'
By Larry Katz
Thursday, November 6, 2003
Bruce Springsteen pulled out of Fenway Park two months ago, but his train keeps a-rollin'.
A new triple-CD, ``The Essential Bruce Springsteen,'' arrives in stores Tuesday. It capsulizes his entire career in 30 songs spread over two discs. A third CD of rarities includes a dozen hard-to-find and previously unreleased songs, many remarkable.
``Live In Barcelona,'' a double DVD, arrives a week later on Nov. 18. The main course is every note of the 24-song concert previously aired in part on CBS. Side dishes include footage from Springsteen's already-storied September stand at Fenway.
Anyone, fan or not, who has ever pondered why so many find Springsteen's songs so compelling should read Robert Coles' new ``Bruce Springsteen's America'' (Random House, $23.95). The bookserves as a thought-provoking companion piece - and would make a perfect third item in a holiday Springsteen gift package.
Coles, a psychiatrist, Harvard professor and author of dozens of books including the Pulitzer Prize-winning ``Children of Crisis,'' focuses on Springsteen's lyrics and how they reflect and touch the lives of his listeners. His book is subtitled, ``The People Listening, a Poet Singing.''
The notion of looking at Springsteen - or Dylan or Tupac - as a people's poet is nothing new. But Coles makes us see and appreciate Springsteen as part of a specific tradition of artists who have documented the lives and struggles of ordinary Americans and found us extraordinary.
``(Springsteen) looks at America,'' Coles says sitting in a comfortably worn easy chair in the study of his Concord home, where a wall of photographs includes a shot of a Coles, bottle of Jack Daniels in hand, and a beaming Springsteen.
``Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra did that, too, but they didn't write the words they sang. Springsteen is a writing singer. And it's his language that got me going. He's been all over this country like some nut case like me, who's been trying to find out what this country is like and just who are these Americans?
``He's out there as a social observer, as a sensitive person aware of the complexity of the country and as an American explorer, a witness who takes what he sees and puts it into words that people can hear. It's a cycle of seeing, caring, knowing, writing, singing. It's the story as told by a guy whose mind is not clotted with a lot of theories or sociological constructs that characters like me have in places like universities!''
Coles bursts out laughing. ``This is better than what I wrote in the book!''
Actually Coles didn't write the bulk of ``Bruce Springsteen's America.'' It consists in the main of monologues by 10 people - middle school teacher, truck driver, lawyer, businessman, cop - interviewed by Coles while he was doing his other documentary work.
All of Coles' subjects talk at length about how Springsteen's songs have made them think hard about their own lives. Not all share the Boss' point of view. None of them, amazingly, had ever been to a Springsteen concert.
Until the late '90s, neither had Coles. His interest in Springsteen dawned slowly after Coles heard him praised by his friend novelist Walker Percy, his esteemed teacher and colleague Erik Erikson and his sons, who pointed out the similarities between the New Jersey rocker and William Carlos Williams, the New Jersey poet who was Coles' mentor.
``I went to (Springsteen's) concert in Lowell,'' Coles says. ``It got me nervous. People were screaming and raising their hands. It reminded me of the Nazis in 1930s in Europe. But afterwards I met Bruce backstage. After that he wrote me, and I sent him things. It was a correspondence. When I was teaching `The Invisible Man,' he came to the lectures, eight o'clock on a Tuesday morning.''
Coles discovered in Springsteen's songs a link to the very same artists that had inspired his own work - Walt Whitman, James Agee, Dorothea Lange, Flannery O'Connor, John Steinbeck. When DoubleTake, the literary-photographic documentary magazine founded by Coles, faced a financial crisis, Springsteen came to the rescue with two solo benefit shows at the Somerville Theatre last February. DoubleTake recently suspended publication again after returning with one issue, but Coles insists it will return.
Coles confesses that for all his admiration of Springsteen, he's never listened to an entire Springsteen album.
``I'm not a Springsteen authority,'' he says. ``But if you want to know what some particular Americans say about him, I'll tell you that. He's someone who tells us about ourselves, about how we live, about what we struggle with. And he's done a remarkable job.''
Springsteen 101: Harvard prof's new book examines Boss as people's `Poet'
By Larry Katz
Thursday, November 6, 2003
Bruce Springsteen pulled out of Fenway Park two months ago, but his train keeps a-rollin'.
A new triple-CD, ``The Essential Bruce Springsteen,'' arrives in stores Tuesday. It capsulizes his entire career in 30 songs spread over two discs. A third CD of rarities includes a dozen hard-to-find and previously unreleased songs, many remarkable.
``Live In Barcelona,'' a double DVD, arrives a week later on Nov. 18. The main course is every note of the 24-song concert previously aired in part on CBS. Side dishes include footage from Springsteen's already-storied September stand at Fenway.
Anyone, fan or not, who has ever pondered why so many find Springsteen's songs so compelling should read Robert Coles' new ``Bruce Springsteen's America'' (Random House, $23.95). The bookserves as a thought-provoking companion piece - and would make a perfect third item in a holiday Springsteen gift package.
Coles, a psychiatrist, Harvard professor and author of dozens of books including the Pulitzer Prize-winning ``Children of Crisis,'' focuses on Springsteen's lyrics and how they reflect and touch the lives of his listeners. His book is subtitled, ``The People Listening, a Poet Singing.''
The notion of looking at Springsteen - or Dylan or Tupac - as a people's poet is nothing new. But Coles makes us see and appreciate Springsteen as part of a specific tradition of artists who have documented the lives and struggles of ordinary Americans and found us extraordinary.
``(Springsteen) looks at America,'' Coles says sitting in a comfortably worn easy chair in the study of his Concord home, where a wall of photographs includes a shot of a Coles, bottle of Jack Daniels in hand, and a beaming Springsteen.
``Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra did that, too, but they didn't write the words they sang. Springsteen is a writing singer. And it's his language that got me going. He's been all over this country like some nut case like me, who's been trying to find out what this country is like and just who are these Americans?
``He's out there as a social observer, as a sensitive person aware of the complexity of the country and as an American explorer, a witness who takes what he sees and puts it into words that people can hear. It's a cycle of seeing, caring, knowing, writing, singing. It's the story as told by a guy whose mind is not clotted with a lot of theories or sociological constructs that characters like me have in places like universities!''
Coles bursts out laughing. ``This is better than what I wrote in the book!''
Actually Coles didn't write the bulk of ``Bruce Springsteen's America.'' It consists in the main of monologues by 10 people - middle school teacher, truck driver, lawyer, businessman, cop - interviewed by Coles while he was doing his other documentary work.
All of Coles' subjects talk at length about how Springsteen's songs have made them think hard about their own lives. Not all share the Boss' point of view. None of them, amazingly, had ever been to a Springsteen concert.
Until the late '90s, neither had Coles. His interest in Springsteen dawned slowly after Coles heard him praised by his friend novelist Walker Percy, his esteemed teacher and colleague Erik Erikson and his sons, who pointed out the similarities between the New Jersey rocker and William Carlos Williams, the New Jersey poet who was Coles' mentor.
``I went to (Springsteen's) concert in Lowell,'' Coles says. ``It got me nervous. People were screaming and raising their hands. It reminded me of the Nazis in 1930s in Europe. But afterwards I met Bruce backstage. After that he wrote me, and I sent him things. It was a correspondence. When I was teaching `The Invisible Man,' he came to the lectures, eight o'clock on a Tuesday morning.''
Coles discovered in Springsteen's songs a link to the very same artists that had inspired his own work - Walt Whitman, James Agee, Dorothea Lange, Flannery O'Connor, John Steinbeck. When DoubleTake, the literary-photographic documentary magazine founded by Coles, faced a financial crisis, Springsteen came to the rescue with two solo benefit shows at the Somerville Theatre last February. DoubleTake recently suspended publication again after returning with one issue, but Coles insists it will return.
Coles confesses that for all his admiration of Springsteen, he's never listened to an entire Springsteen album.
``I'm not a Springsteen authority,'' he says. ``But if you want to know what some particular Americans say about him, I'll tell you that. He's someone who tells us about ourselves, about how we live, about what we struggle with. And he's done a remarkable job.''
Excellent commentary from Tammy Bruce on the biased swillfest that Mr. Streisand was involved with:
The Obscenity of CBS’ “The Reagans”
As of this writing, it looks more likely that CBS will not be airing their smear of the Reagans.
CBS, which is owned by Viacom, came under fire when details of scenes were released that presented Ronald Reagan, among other obscenities, complaining about being the “anti-Christ,” and declaring that gay people who get AIDS deserve to die.
My good friend Marc Christian was Rock Hudson’s last partner. Marc, like most other Americans, is appalled at the reported portrayal of the President, not only because he believes it to be an untrue portrait, but because he knows.
Marc wrote a letter to CBS entertainment head Les Moonves making clear his disgust at the portrayal of the President, especially the assertion that Reagan was a cruel homophobe. While Marc did not write his letter for public consumption, I found it important and asked it I could share it with you. He graciously agreed.
Here is the education Marc Christian gave Les Moonves:
"The notion that President Reagan was a homophobe strikes me as silly beyond belief. Not only did he have several gay men on his staff when he was Governor of California, he called my lover, Rock Hudson when he was on his deathbed just weeks before he died of AIDS and wished him well and voiced his and Nancy's concern and prayers.
"…The Reagans had known Rock for years and knew he was gay (as did most in Hollywood). The point is Reagan could have ignored Rock's illness and didn't. He could have just issued a public statement concerning his "official sorrow" but made a personal phone call instead.
"CBS used to be the network of class, now its the official arm of the Democrat party and its sources for information regarding truth below that of The National Enquirer. I bet President Reagan's phone call to Rock Hudson isn't in the screenplay or should I say smearplay, is it?"
Marc Christian.
Hollywood, CA
This note from Marc to Moonves is important for several reasons, mostly for the injection of the truth into a world ruled by vacant, malevolent leftists. Their elite actively work to destroy any idea, or any individual, who challenge the dead, cold heart of their glorious leftist establishment. The CBS depiction of the Reagans epitomizes this callous agenda.
Marc’s letter, and the e-mails, letters and calls all of you made to CBS to register your protest and to support a great and decent man and his wife, obviously do make a difference. Even if it’s just a reminder to the media elite that their cloistered, decrepit little world has been invaded—by truth, reality, and fairness.
The Obscenity of CBS’ “The Reagans”
As of this writing, it looks more likely that CBS will not be airing their smear of the Reagans.
CBS, which is owned by Viacom, came under fire when details of scenes were released that presented Ronald Reagan, among other obscenities, complaining about being the “anti-Christ,” and declaring that gay people who get AIDS deserve to die.
My good friend Marc Christian was Rock Hudson’s last partner. Marc, like most other Americans, is appalled at the reported portrayal of the President, not only because he believes it to be an untrue portrait, but because he knows.
Marc wrote a letter to CBS entertainment head Les Moonves making clear his disgust at the portrayal of the President, especially the assertion that Reagan was a cruel homophobe. While Marc did not write his letter for public consumption, I found it important and asked it I could share it with you. He graciously agreed.
Here is the education Marc Christian gave Les Moonves:
"The notion that President Reagan was a homophobe strikes me as silly beyond belief. Not only did he have several gay men on his staff when he was Governor of California, he called my lover, Rock Hudson when he was on his deathbed just weeks before he died of AIDS and wished him well and voiced his and Nancy's concern and prayers.
"…The Reagans had known Rock for years and knew he was gay (as did most in Hollywood). The point is Reagan could have ignored Rock's illness and didn't. He could have just issued a public statement concerning his "official sorrow" but made a personal phone call instead.
"CBS used to be the network of class, now its the official arm of the Democrat party and its sources for information regarding truth below that of The National Enquirer. I bet President Reagan's phone call to Rock Hudson isn't in the screenplay or should I say smearplay, is it?"
Marc Christian.
Hollywood, CA
This note from Marc to Moonves is important for several reasons, mostly for the injection of the truth into a world ruled by vacant, malevolent leftists. Their elite actively work to destroy any idea, or any individual, who challenge the dead, cold heart of their glorious leftist establishment. The CBS depiction of the Reagans epitomizes this callous agenda.
Marc’s letter, and the e-mails, letters and calls all of you made to CBS to register your protest and to support a great and decent man and his wife, obviously do make a difference. Even if it’s just a reminder to the media elite that their cloistered, decrepit little world has been invaded—by truth, reality, and fairness.
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Another in a series of great columns by Coulter.
The 'Mainstream' Is Located In France
by Ann Coulter
October 29, 2003
THE NEWSPAPER that almost missed the war in Iraq because its reporters were in Georgia covering the membership policies of the Augusta National Golf Club has declared another one of President George Bush's judicial nominees as "out of the mainstream." The New York Times has proclaimed so many Bush nominees "out of the mainstream" that the editorial calling California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown "out of the mainstream" was literally titled: "Out of the Mainstream, Again."
Among Bush's "many unworthy judicial nominees," the Times said, Brown is "among the very worst" – more "out of the mainstream" than all the rest! Even Teddy Kennedy, who might be well advised to withhold comment on a woman's position relative to a moving body of water, has described Brown as "out of the mainstream," adding, "Let's just hope this one can swim."
Liberals are hysterical about Justice Brown principally because she is black. Nothing enrages them so much as a minority who does not spend her days saying hosannas to liberals.
On the basis of its editorial positions, the Times seems to have called a bunch of racist Southern election supervisors out of retirement to cover judicial nominations for the paper. The only difference is, instead of phony "literacy" tests, now we have phony "mainstream" tests. Amazingly, no matter how many conservative minorities Bush sends up, the Times has not been able to find a single one who is "qualified." The Times thinks Justice Brown should be the maid and Miguel Estrada the pool boy.
According to the Times, Brown has "declared war on the mainstream legal values that most Americans hold dear." What the Times means by "mainstream legal values" is: off-the-charts unpopular positions favored by NAMBLA, the ACLU and The New York Times editorial page.
Thus, for example, opposition to partial-birth abortion – opposed by 70 percent of the American people – is "out of the mainstream."
Support for the death penalty – supported by 70 percent of the American people – is "out of the mainstream."
Opposition to government-sanctioned race discrimination – which voters in the largest state in the nation put on an initiative titled Proposition 209 and enacted into law – is "out of the mainstream."
Opposition to gay marriage – opposed by 60 percent of the American people – is "out of the mainstream."
Failing to recognize that totally nude dancing is "speech" is "out of the mainstream."
Questioning whether gay Scoutmasters should be taking 14-year-old boys on overnight sleepovers in the woods is "out of the mainstream."
I guess if your "mainstream" includes Roman Polanski, Michael Moore, Howard Dean and Jacques Chirac, then Brown really is "out of the mainstream." This proverbial "stream" they're constantly referring to is evidently located somewhere in France.
Liberals are always complaining that they haven't figured out how to distill their message to slogans and bumper stickers – as they allege Republicans have. Though it can't be easy to fit the entire Communist Manifesto on a bumper sticker, I beg to differ. (Bumper sticker version of the current Democratic platform: "Ask me about how I'm going to raise your taxes.")
The problem is, if Democrats ever dared speak coherently, the American people would lynch them. Fortunately for liberals, soccer moms hear that a nominee is "extreme" and "out the mainstream" and are too frightened to ask for details. (Ironically, based on ticket sales and TV ratings, soccer is also out of the mainstream.)
In addition to the fact that she is black and "out of the mainstream," the first item in the Times' bill of particulars against Brown was this:
"She regularly stakes out extreme positions, often dissenting alone. In one case, her court ordered a rental car company to stop its supervisor from calling Hispanic employees by racial epithets. Justice Brown dissented, arguing that doing so violated the company's free-speech rights."
Despite the Times' implication that Brown was "dissenting alone" in this case, she was not. The opinion of the California Supreme Court in the case, Aguilar v. Avis, was as closely divided as it gets: 4-3. Among the dissenters was Stanley Mosk, who was once described by the Los Angeles Times as "the court's most liberal member." When Mosk died in 2001, his obituary in The New York Times described him as "the only liberal on the seven-member court." I suppose if the Times had mentioned that a prominent liberal jurist had agreed with Brown in Aguilar, it would be harder to frighten silly women with that "out of the mainstream" babble.
But the real beauty part of Brown's dissent in Aguilar is that she was vindicating a constitutional principle that is second in importance only to abortion for liberals: no prior restraints on speech.
In a major victory for Avis, the jury rejected almost all of the claims against Avis by Hispanic employees, but did find that two managers – only one of whom still worked at Avis – had called Hispanics names. So the lower-court judge got the idea to issue an injunction prohibiting one single Avis manager from ever using derogatory language about Avis' Hispanic employees.
The injunction was broad enough to prevent the manager from using such language in his home, out of earshot of his employees, in a joking or friendly manner, as part of a hypothetical example, or even if his speech were incapable of creating a "hostile environment" under the law. Questions were also raised about whether he was even allowed to chuckle at the little dog in those "Yo quiero Taco Bell" TV commercials. It was basically a bill of attainder against this one manager (who was himself married to a Hispanic).
I note that liberals laughed at the idea that a "hostile environment" could be created by a single incident of a governor dropping his pants and asking a subordinate to "kiss it." But the mere speculative threat of a manager saying "wetback" – one time – was such a threat to the stability of the nation that the Times backed a prior restraint on the manager's speech.
Usually The New York Times is citing the law's antagonism to prior restraints on speech in order to wax eloquent about the Supreme Court's "landmark decision in the Pentagon Papers case." In a ruling that celebrated the very essence of the First Amendment, the court ruled that the government couldn't stop the Treason Times from publishing classified national-security documents. As the Times put it, that case had "made it clear that only a showing of concrete, immediate risk to the nation could justify a judicial order imposing a prior restraint on any kind of publication."
But apparently, there is one interest even more vital than preventing an immediate risk to the nation: stopping a supervisor someplace in America from ever using the word "spic." Anyone who disagrees is "out of the mainstream." And any minority who is not duly grateful to liberals for supporting prior restraints against certain words is only qualified to be the maid.
The 'Mainstream' Is Located In France
by Ann Coulter
October 29, 2003
THE NEWSPAPER that almost missed the war in Iraq because its reporters were in Georgia covering the membership policies of the Augusta National Golf Club has declared another one of President George Bush's judicial nominees as "out of the mainstream." The New York Times has proclaimed so many Bush nominees "out of the mainstream" that the editorial calling California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown "out of the mainstream" was literally titled: "Out of the Mainstream, Again."
Among Bush's "many unworthy judicial nominees," the Times said, Brown is "among the very worst" – more "out of the mainstream" than all the rest! Even Teddy Kennedy, who might be well advised to withhold comment on a woman's position relative to a moving body of water, has described Brown as "out of the mainstream," adding, "Let's just hope this one can swim."
Liberals are hysterical about Justice Brown principally because she is black. Nothing enrages them so much as a minority who does not spend her days saying hosannas to liberals.
On the basis of its editorial positions, the Times seems to have called a bunch of racist Southern election supervisors out of retirement to cover judicial nominations for the paper. The only difference is, instead of phony "literacy" tests, now we have phony "mainstream" tests. Amazingly, no matter how many conservative minorities Bush sends up, the Times has not been able to find a single one who is "qualified." The Times thinks Justice Brown should be the maid and Miguel Estrada the pool boy.
According to the Times, Brown has "declared war on the mainstream legal values that most Americans hold dear." What the Times means by "mainstream legal values" is: off-the-charts unpopular positions favored by NAMBLA, the ACLU and The New York Times editorial page.
Thus, for example, opposition to partial-birth abortion – opposed by 70 percent of the American people – is "out of the mainstream."
Support for the death penalty – supported by 70 percent of the American people – is "out of the mainstream."
Opposition to government-sanctioned race discrimination – which voters in the largest state in the nation put on an initiative titled Proposition 209 and enacted into law – is "out of the mainstream."
Opposition to gay marriage – opposed by 60 percent of the American people – is "out of the mainstream."
Failing to recognize that totally nude dancing is "speech" is "out of the mainstream."
Questioning whether gay Scoutmasters should be taking 14-year-old boys on overnight sleepovers in the woods is "out of the mainstream."
I guess if your "mainstream" includes Roman Polanski, Michael Moore, Howard Dean and Jacques Chirac, then Brown really is "out of the mainstream." This proverbial "stream" they're constantly referring to is evidently located somewhere in France.
Liberals are always complaining that they haven't figured out how to distill their message to slogans and bumper stickers – as they allege Republicans have. Though it can't be easy to fit the entire Communist Manifesto on a bumper sticker, I beg to differ. (Bumper sticker version of the current Democratic platform: "Ask me about how I'm going to raise your taxes.")
The problem is, if Democrats ever dared speak coherently, the American people would lynch them. Fortunately for liberals, soccer moms hear that a nominee is "extreme" and "out the mainstream" and are too frightened to ask for details. (Ironically, based on ticket sales and TV ratings, soccer is also out of the mainstream.)
In addition to the fact that she is black and "out of the mainstream," the first item in the Times' bill of particulars against Brown was this:
"She regularly stakes out extreme positions, often dissenting alone. In one case, her court ordered a rental car company to stop its supervisor from calling Hispanic employees by racial epithets. Justice Brown dissented, arguing that doing so violated the company's free-speech rights."
Despite the Times' implication that Brown was "dissenting alone" in this case, she was not. The opinion of the California Supreme Court in the case, Aguilar v. Avis, was as closely divided as it gets: 4-3. Among the dissenters was Stanley Mosk, who was once described by the Los Angeles Times as "the court's most liberal member." When Mosk died in 2001, his obituary in The New York Times described him as "the only liberal on the seven-member court." I suppose if the Times had mentioned that a prominent liberal jurist had agreed with Brown in Aguilar, it would be harder to frighten silly women with that "out of the mainstream" babble.
But the real beauty part of Brown's dissent in Aguilar is that she was vindicating a constitutional principle that is second in importance only to abortion for liberals: no prior restraints on speech.
In a major victory for Avis, the jury rejected almost all of the claims against Avis by Hispanic employees, but did find that two managers – only one of whom still worked at Avis – had called Hispanics names. So the lower-court judge got the idea to issue an injunction prohibiting one single Avis manager from ever using derogatory language about Avis' Hispanic employees.
The injunction was broad enough to prevent the manager from using such language in his home, out of earshot of his employees, in a joking or friendly manner, as part of a hypothetical example, or even if his speech were incapable of creating a "hostile environment" under the law. Questions were also raised about whether he was even allowed to chuckle at the little dog in those "Yo quiero Taco Bell" TV commercials. It was basically a bill of attainder against this one manager (who was himself married to a Hispanic).
I note that liberals laughed at the idea that a "hostile environment" could be created by a single incident of a governor dropping his pants and asking a subordinate to "kiss it." But the mere speculative threat of a manager saying "wetback" – one time – was such a threat to the stability of the nation that the Times backed a prior restraint on the manager's speech.
Usually The New York Times is citing the law's antagonism to prior restraints on speech in order to wax eloquent about the Supreme Court's "landmark decision in the Pentagon Papers case." In a ruling that celebrated the very essence of the First Amendment, the court ruled that the government couldn't stop the Treason Times from publishing classified national-security documents. As the Times put it, that case had "made it clear that only a showing of concrete, immediate risk to the nation could justify a judicial order imposing a prior restraint on any kind of publication."
But apparently, there is one interest even more vital than preventing an immediate risk to the nation: stopping a supervisor someplace in America from ever using the word "spic." Anyone who disagrees is "out of the mainstream." And any minority who is not duly grateful to liberals for supporting prior restraints against certain words is only qualified to be the maid.
Haven't posted in a week. Probably the post World Series letdown. Good piece here from Instapundit about the German occupation at the end of the Second World War. Sound familiar?
How Long Will We Stay in Germany?
By Demaree Bess
Saturday Evening Post
February 2, 1946
Berlin
“Just what I expected!” angrily exclaimed the official from Washington. “I told President Truman that the Army doesn’t understand coal mining. I told him he would have to send civilian specialists to manage this coal business in Germany.”
The official was exasperated. Here he was, inspecting the fuel situation in Europe, and what did he find? He found that although winter was already here, the rich German coal fields still were not producing much, and the United States would have to ship our own coal to Europe to make up the deficiency.
The American general who was responsible for getting coal for the United States zone in Germany was even more exasperated.
“I’d like to know what your civilian specialists would have done with this setup?” he retorted. And he went on to point out that there is practically no coal in the American zone of occupation. The mines of Silesia are controlled by the Red Army; the Ruhr fields are in the British zone; the Saar coal is in the French area.
“We Americans thought at first that it didn’t matter where the mines were located,” the general continued. “We thought that everybody in Europe was equally anxious to get the coal out of the ground before this winter. But it certainly hasn’t worked out that way.” . . .
Thus, although General Eisenhower went into Germany with instructions to bring order out of chaos---for the immediate security of our own Army---he was simultaneously directed to create new disorders in the process of “remaking Germany.” Self-styled “social engineers” in Washington devised projects to “solve the German problem” economically by transforming industrial Germany into a pastoral nation, and to solve the political problem by weeding out all Nazis. In attempting to carry out these complicated directives, a struggle developed here between Americans who were trying to get things running, and other Americans who had been entrusted with staging the “revolution.” In most cases this struggle was not deliberate; both groups were just trying to obey their orders from Washington. . . .
Our denazification policy is another example of the tug of war which has developed in the United States zone between our “reconstructionists” and our “revolutionaries.” The policy makers who were hell bent for revenge saw to it that our Army was ordered to arrest all officials of the Nazi Party “down to and including local group leaders and officials of equivalent rank.” But the Nazi Party, at its peak, claimed more than 8,000,000 adherents, including the majority of skilled workers. A large number of the most skilled railroad workers, for example, are thus automatically included in our category of “mandatory arrests.”
However, it was imperative to get the railroads running again in order to supply food for the approximately 20,000,000 persons for whom our Army was responsible for this winter, including our own soldiers, displaced persons and German prisoners and civilians. American engineers assigned to this job scoured our zone for trained German workers, while our counterintelligence officers were scouring the countryside arresting ex-Nazis.
In Berlin I heard an argument between two American officers. One cried despairingly, “How can I keep this railroad operating if you take away all my skilled workers?”
The other replied, “Don’t think you are the only one with problems. Where am I going to find enough jails to accommodate all these fellows we are arresting?” . . .
This, then is the segment of Germany for which Americans have accepted responsibility---an economic slum in the heart of Europe where the people can be maintained at subsistence level only by importing food and coal. Here we were confronted with the choice of letting the Germans sicken and starve and freeze this winter, or of shipping in food and other supplies from the United states to support our former enemies. If we made the first choice, we discredited our own administration. By making the second choice, we aroused the anger of some of our Allies who also are short of food and coal and housing.
Nor are American obligations in Germany easily confined to our own zone. An American officer in Berlin, Col. Frank Howley, told me about the situation in a suburb adjoining our sector, but just outside of the city limits and therefore located in the Russian zone. The mayor of this suburb came to our Berlin headquarters to plead for help, declaring there were 1000 women and children in his little town, and all the food reserves had been exhausted.
“But why do you come to us?” inquired Col. Howley. “Your town is in the Russian zone.”
“The Russians say they cannot do anything for us,” replied the mayor.
“And what happened to the people in that town?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Colonel Howley answered gruffly. “I believe in being tough with the Germans, and I don’t blame the Russians for being tough. When that mayor returned to my office and begged me to go with him to look at his starving children, I told him to get out and never come back again…I have children of my own and I do my job here best by keeping completely away from children.”
No time limit has been placed upon jobs such as Colonel Howley’s. The United States Army is committed to stay in our zone until the “German problem” is solved. When General Eisenhower’s deputy, Lt. Gen. Lucius D. Clay, was asked in Berlin how long he believed our occupation would last, he replied that it would take at least a generation “if we are going to do the job here we have to do.” . . .
Here in Germany there is no indication that Washington politicians have any clear conception of the precise purposes and probable duration of our German occupation. Our administrative machinery here is building up in a hit-or-miss fashion, and the men to run the machine are being recruited hastily and haphazardly, with almost no evidence of a coherent long range plan. Nevertheless, the chances are very great that this American bureaucracy in the heart of Europe will survive for at least a generation---and perhaps more. We have caught a bear by the tail in Germany, and it will not be easy to let loose without endangering the peace of Europe, which involves our own peace as well.
And we're still there. Does that mean we should have stayed home?
Posted by Glenn Reynolds at November 04, 2003 09:54 AM
How Long Will We Stay in Germany?
By Demaree Bess
Saturday Evening Post
February 2, 1946
Berlin
“Just what I expected!” angrily exclaimed the official from Washington. “I told President Truman that the Army doesn’t understand coal mining. I told him he would have to send civilian specialists to manage this coal business in Germany.”
The official was exasperated. Here he was, inspecting the fuel situation in Europe, and what did he find? He found that although winter was already here, the rich German coal fields still were not producing much, and the United States would have to ship our own coal to Europe to make up the deficiency.
The American general who was responsible for getting coal for the United States zone in Germany was even more exasperated.
“I’d like to know what your civilian specialists would have done with this setup?” he retorted. And he went on to point out that there is practically no coal in the American zone of occupation. The mines of Silesia are controlled by the Red Army; the Ruhr fields are in the British zone; the Saar coal is in the French area.
“We Americans thought at first that it didn’t matter where the mines were located,” the general continued. “We thought that everybody in Europe was equally anxious to get the coal out of the ground before this winter. But it certainly hasn’t worked out that way.” . . .
Thus, although General Eisenhower went into Germany with instructions to bring order out of chaos---for the immediate security of our own Army---he was simultaneously directed to create new disorders in the process of “remaking Germany.” Self-styled “social engineers” in Washington devised projects to “solve the German problem” economically by transforming industrial Germany into a pastoral nation, and to solve the political problem by weeding out all Nazis. In attempting to carry out these complicated directives, a struggle developed here between Americans who were trying to get things running, and other Americans who had been entrusted with staging the “revolution.” In most cases this struggle was not deliberate; both groups were just trying to obey their orders from Washington. . . .
Our denazification policy is another example of the tug of war which has developed in the United States zone between our “reconstructionists” and our “revolutionaries.” The policy makers who were hell bent for revenge saw to it that our Army was ordered to arrest all officials of the Nazi Party “down to and including local group leaders and officials of equivalent rank.” But the Nazi Party, at its peak, claimed more than 8,000,000 adherents, including the majority of skilled workers. A large number of the most skilled railroad workers, for example, are thus automatically included in our category of “mandatory arrests.”
However, it was imperative to get the railroads running again in order to supply food for the approximately 20,000,000 persons for whom our Army was responsible for this winter, including our own soldiers, displaced persons and German prisoners and civilians. American engineers assigned to this job scoured our zone for trained German workers, while our counterintelligence officers were scouring the countryside arresting ex-Nazis.
In Berlin I heard an argument between two American officers. One cried despairingly, “How can I keep this railroad operating if you take away all my skilled workers?”
The other replied, “Don’t think you are the only one with problems. Where am I going to find enough jails to accommodate all these fellows we are arresting?” . . .
This, then is the segment of Germany for which Americans have accepted responsibility---an economic slum in the heart of Europe where the people can be maintained at subsistence level only by importing food and coal. Here we were confronted with the choice of letting the Germans sicken and starve and freeze this winter, or of shipping in food and other supplies from the United states to support our former enemies. If we made the first choice, we discredited our own administration. By making the second choice, we aroused the anger of some of our Allies who also are short of food and coal and housing.
Nor are American obligations in Germany easily confined to our own zone. An American officer in Berlin, Col. Frank Howley, told me about the situation in a suburb adjoining our sector, but just outside of the city limits and therefore located in the Russian zone. The mayor of this suburb came to our Berlin headquarters to plead for help, declaring there were 1000 women and children in his little town, and all the food reserves had been exhausted.
“But why do you come to us?” inquired Col. Howley. “Your town is in the Russian zone.”
“The Russians say they cannot do anything for us,” replied the mayor.
“And what happened to the people in that town?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Colonel Howley answered gruffly. “I believe in being tough with the Germans, and I don’t blame the Russians for being tough. When that mayor returned to my office and begged me to go with him to look at his starving children, I told him to get out and never come back again…I have children of my own and I do my job here best by keeping completely away from children.”
No time limit has been placed upon jobs such as Colonel Howley’s. The United States Army is committed to stay in our zone until the “German problem” is solved. When General Eisenhower’s deputy, Lt. Gen. Lucius D. Clay, was asked in Berlin how long he believed our occupation would last, he replied that it would take at least a generation “if we are going to do the job here we have to do.” . . .
Here in Germany there is no indication that Washington politicians have any clear conception of the precise purposes and probable duration of our German occupation. Our administrative machinery here is building up in a hit-or-miss fashion, and the men to run the machine are being recruited hastily and haphazardly, with almost no evidence of a coherent long range plan. Nevertheless, the chances are very great that this American bureaucracy in the heart of Europe will survive for at least a generation---and perhaps more. We have caught a bear by the tail in Germany, and it will not be easy to let loose without endangering the peace of Europe, which involves our own peace as well.
And we're still there. Does that mean we should have stayed home?
Posted by Glenn Reynolds at November 04, 2003 09:54 AM
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